On a commercial scale, chocolate candy is generally manufactured using moulds. A chocolate mould is usually made of plastic and includes one or more cavities for forming chocolates in desired shapes. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate and filled chocolates can all be manufactured using moulds. During manufacturing, tempered liquid chocolate is deposited into the moulds' cavities as the moulds move along a conveyor line. The filled moulds then pass through a variety of stations where the liquid chocolate is vibrated to remove trapped air, optional fillings are added, the chocolate is cooled, and other optional processes are applied. After chocolate candy is formed, the individual pieces are removed from the moulds, either automatically or by hand, and individually wrapped, assembled or otherwise packaged. Because the moulds have to undergo such a long and harsh process, the moulds have to be sturdy and well reinforced, particularly if they are made up of multiple parts.
Several types of moulds can be utilized in manufacturing chocolates. One type is an assembly mould. Assembly moulds, sometimes referred to as three dimensional moulds, allow for manufacturing fully shaped and decorated chocolates. Such moulds consist of multiple pieces that are assembled into a finished product.
Some assembly moulds are assembled during production. For example, an assembly mould, called a book mould, may be made up of two mould pieces, each containing cavities for forming half of a chocolate candy. During production, each mould piece is filled with chocolate and the two mould pieces are joined together when the chocolate is in a semi-hardened state, to form a three dimensional chocolate candy. Alternatively, chocolate may be poured into a pre-assembled assembly mould.
Assembly moulds are also utilized for manufacturing chocolates with printed designs or textures, using printed or textured transfer sheets. These moulds include a bottom mould piece on which a transfer sheet is placed. The transfer sheet is either printed with edible ink or contains a textured pattern thereon. A top mould piece formed with bottomless cavities is placed on top, such that the bottom of the cavities reveals the transfer sheet. As tempered chocolate is poured into the mould cavity, the design on the transfer sheet is transferred onto the chocolate while the chocolate is simultaneously formed into the desired shape.
The individual mould pieces of assembly moulds are generally held together by pins, but more recently, magnetic chocolate moulds were introduced. Magnetic chocolate moulds allow for a more firm and tight mould assembly, which can be quickly assembled and disassembled. To keep the mould pieces together, a significant number of magnets relative to the size of the mould are used.
As the moulds move along the production line during the production process, it is desired to stack the moulds and later destack or separate them. For example, when the moulds are initially assembled, they are typically vertically stacked into pallets by hand. However, the individual moulds in the stack of moulds must be separated before being fed onto the production line to be filled with chocolate. Moulds may also be stacked automatically at one of the production stations. For example, it may be beneficial to vertically stack already-filled moulds on the production line before they enter a cooling station where the chocolate is cooled. Upon exiting the cooling station, the stack of moulds must be destacked, or separated, so they can be fed into the remaining stations on the production line.
Conventionally, to destack the moulds, the stacked moulds are fed into the top of a destacking machine that automatically destacks the stacked moulds by simply dropping the bottommost moulds one at a time onto a conveyor. However, such machines are incapable of automatically destacking magnetic moulds. Typically due to the number and/or strength of the magnets, the bottommost magnetic mould assembly remains magnetized to the other mould assemblies and either does not drop onto the conveyor, or drops later than would be optimal, causing delays or completely stopping the production line. Unfortunately, the strength and number of magnets cannot be reduced without jeopardizing the quality of the mould assembly. As such, workers are used to individually place the magnetic mould assemblies on the conveyor, which is an expensive and time consuming process.
There is therefore a need for a system, method and apparatus for destacking magnetic moulds or similar articles that overcomes some or all of the previously delineated drawbacks of destacking machines and the associated known moulds.